In 2012, even I wrote a 150-page eBook about severance package negotiations that still regularly sells about ~35 copies a month at $85 each (2nd edition for 2017) without any effort. In order to generate $2,975 a month or $35,700 a year in passive income as I do now, I would need to invest $892,500 in something that generates a 4% yield! To earn $10,000 a year in passive income would therefore need roughly $250,000 in capital.
Additionally, if you wrote a book and receive royalty checks, that income is also passive and not subjected to self-employment taxes. But, if you write several books or make updates to an existing book (like this one) then you are materially participating in your activity and your income is earned income. And Yes, you would pay self-employment taxes on that income.
It is very important to understand that contacting a “professional” to learn how to do this only results in them trying to sell me crap properties (whether high end or low end). I’ve tried contacting realtors out of state, and they attempt to sell me crap or someone else’s problem. No one has a vested interest in actually helping someone or teaching them about how to get an out of state rental. very frustrating. I could go out tomorrow and buy a rental in my city, but that is the last place I want to own one. Anyone? Are there an real people on here?
Lauren Perez, CEPF® Lauren Perez writes on a variety of personal finance topics for SmartAsset, with a special expertise in savings, banking and credit cards. She is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance® (CEPF®) and a member of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. Lauren has a degree in English from the University of Rochester where she focused on Language, Media and Communications. She is originally from Los Angeles. While prone to the occasional shopping spree, Lauren has been aware of the importance of money management and savings since she was young. Lauren loves being able to make credit card and retirement account recommendations to friends and family based on the hours of research she completes at SmartAsset.
Despite the anger expressed by the tax community and business owners across the country, the government reiterated in October 2017 its intention to move forward with the proposed passive income rules and promised that further details will be revealed as part of the 2018 budget. February 27, 2018 was the date that the so anticipated federal budget was released and to the surprise of tax practitioners and private business owners, the government completely abandoned its July 2017 passive income proposals. The 2018 budget instead proposes to further restrict the access to the small business deduction (which will not be discussed here) and to refine the refundable taxes regime applying to CCPCs. The proposed new refundable taxes regime is less complex and less costly than the framework suggested by the July 2017 proposals, however, Finance proposes to limit another type of tax deferral allowed prior to the budget as discussed in more details below.
There is a way to find undervalued dividend growth stocks. Of course, any additional passive income I receive I will invest into the best dividend growth companies to ensure I’m participating in compound interest. In addition, if you love investing in impact sectors. I like Wunder Capital to invest in solar projects across the U.S. Check out our review on the Wunder Capital platform.

As interest rates have been going down over the past 30 years, bond prices have continued to go up. With the 10-year yield (risk free rate) at roughly 2.55%, and the Fed Funds rate at 1.5% (two more 0.25% hikes are expected in 2018), it’s hard to see interest rates declining much further. That said, long term interest rates can stay low for a long time. Just look at Japanese interest rates, which are negative (inflation is higher than nominal interest rate).

Leveraging the internet to create, connect, and sell is something every creative person should attempt to do. The only risk is lost time and a wounded ego. You can start a site like mine for as little as $2.95 a month with Bluehost and go from there. They give you a free domain name for a year. Forget all the add-ons. Not a day goes by that I’m not grateful for my site.
I wanted these freedoms so I began pursuing a means to have those, which in my case ended up being starting my own company that I could work from anywhere and with no deadlines whatsoever (although the no deadline thing does make things hard sometimes). The income from that company is planned to continue buying more passive income investments so eventually I hit total financial freedom where I can keep living my current lifestyle minus the work part. All of this is called “lifestyle design.”
As you may have noticed, there is a common theme throughout all the ways the wealthy generate passive income. All of them require you, in the beginning, to trade your time for money while building your passive income machine. Eventually you will be able to leverage that time into exponential passive income while being able to work less and less. The attitude being a willingness to take some risk, work hard, and create something of value. If you put good in, you will get good out. Wealthy people tend to choose this attitude more than others.
While reading a very interesting book recently about the conquest of the Northwestern Territory (it’s Ohio, not Oregon for those of you who aren’t history buffs) I realized that the founding fathers of the US were all unabashed capitalists. Washington, Hamilton etc all held title to huge tracts of land West of the Appalachians that they had been speculating in for decades. Forming the US Army (a standing army was a big deal to a people who at the time equated a standing army with tyranny) and conquering the Iroquois was, in at least some respects, about profiting on their investments. While WCI readers probably don’t have any plans to conquer other nations, the real point of all this financial stuff we talk about on this blog is to turn yourself into a capitalist as quickly as possible. While capitalism has its issues, it’s still the best economic system we’ve found yet.
The government has announced its intention to introduce legislation that will reduce the SBD limit by $5 for every $1 of investment income above a $50,000 threshold, beginning in 2019. Once passive investment income exceeds $150,000, the SBD limit will be reduced to zero and the CCPC will pay tax at the general corporate tax rate of 26.5% as opposed to the 13.5% SBD Rate (for Ontario CCPCs).
If you have a capital loss on the disposition of an interest in a passive activity, the loss may be limited. For individuals, your capital loss deduction is limited to the amount of your capital gains plus the lower of $3,000 ($1,500 in the case of a married individual filing a separate return) or the excess of your capital losses over capital gains. See Pub. 544 for more information.
​Udemy is an online platform that lets its user take video courses on a wide array of subjects. Instead of being a consumer on Udemy you can instead be a producer, create your own video course, and allow users to purchase it. This is a fantastic option if you are highly knowledgeable in a specific subject matter. This can also be a great way to turn traditional tutoring into a passive income stream!
One of the latest trends is crowdfunding / syndications where money is pooled together to directly invest in various real estate properties. You do not get quite the variety and diversification you would in a REIT but it provides an opportunity to invest a smaller amount of money than purchasing a property directly. Usually, you are a limited partner in a partnership. Since you are not materially involved in the day to day activities, the income generated is passive income.
In a worst-case scenario, a complete loss of the SBD, which would only occur when the AAII is greater than $150,000, means that $500,000 of income that would have been taxed at the low rate of, say 12.5 per cent in Ontario in 2019, would be taxed at the higher, general rate of 26.5 per cent. That difference, representing 14 per cent, translates to $70,000 less to invest, which can make a big difference with years of investing.

There was a time when CDs would produce a respectable 4%+ yield. Nowadays, you’ll be lucky to find a 5-7 year CD that provides anything above 2.5% The great thing about CDs is that there are no income or net worth minimums to invest, unlike many alternative investments, which require investors to be accredited. Anybody can go to their local bank and open up a CD of their desired duration. Furthermore, a CD is FDIC insured for up to $250,000 per individual, and $500,000 per joint account.

P.S. I also fail to understand your fascination with real estate. Granted we’ve had some impressive spikes along the way, especially with once in a life time bubble we just went through. But over the long term (see Case Shiller real estate chart for last 100 years ) real estate tends to just track inflation. Why would you sacrifice stock market returns for a vehicle that historically hasn’t shown a real return?

The IRS gives more specific limitations as to what it means by “material” participation. For one, it includes if you worked at least 500 hours in a year on the project or more than 100 hours when no one else works more than you. Additionally, if you do at least almost all of the work in an activity, it’s considered material involvement. Even the combination of your work in multiple significant participation activities (SPAs), if it exceeds 500 hours, counts as material participation. There are a few more criteria that would qualify a project as material. You only need to meet one to qualify.
“There is no such thing as 100% passive income,” says Flynn. “Even with real estate you still have to manage your properties, or even with the stock market, which is potentially passive income, you still have to manage your portfolio. With online business, there is no such thing as 100% passive income — and this is coming from a guy with a blog called SmartPassiveIncome.com. The definition of passive income is ‘building these businesses of automation,’ but in order to keep them automated and keep that trust going with your audience on top of that, you do have to keep it up every once in a while — so a lot of time upfront and a little time after. But there is alway time involved.”
A Risk Score of 10 means no risk. A Return Score of 1 means the returns are horrible compared to the risk-free rate. A Feasibility score of 10 means everybody can do it. A Liquidity Score of 1 means it’s very difficult to withdraw your money without a massive penalty. An Activity Score of 10 means you can kick back and do nothing to earn income. To make the ranking as realistic as possible, every score is relative to each other. Furthermore, the return criteria is based off trying to generate $10,000 a year in passive income.
Ali Boone(G+) left her corporate job as an Aeronautical Engineer to work full-time in Real Estate Investing. She began as an investor in 2011 and managed to buy 5 properties in her first 18 months using only creative financing methods. Her focus is on rental properties, specifically turnkey rental properties, and has also invested out of the country in Nicaragua.
Deductions or losses from passive activities are limited. You generally can’t offset income, other than passive income, with losses from passive activities. Nor can you offset taxes on income, other than passive income, with credits resulting from passive activities. Any excess loss or credit is carried forward to the next tax year. Exceptions to the rules for figuring passive activity limits for personal use of a dwelling unit and for rental real estate with active participation are discussed later.

I wanted to specifically call out one particular strategy within equity investing that bears mentioning – dividend growth investing is when you focus on stocks that not only pay a dividend but have a history of strong dividend growth. When I was first building my portfolio of individual stocks, I focused on buying companies with a history of dividends, a history of strong growth, and financials that supported a continuation of both.

Hey Mike! Love this article. Recently, I paid off my student loans and am crazy focused on creating multiple passive income streams. Currently, all my passive income comes from real estate and because of your great articles on the subject I called to check out refinance options! I had no clue about CD laddering, dividend investing or P2P lending until two weeks ago when I started doing my research on where to put my hard earned money. I had been just saving it but when I looked at the terrible 0.01% return I said forget it! 2 % for me is a great way to start. It is better than what I have been getting outside of my real estate. Also, creating products is a must! I’m working on this type of royalty too. I find it so exciting to learn how to use your money to make money. Thanks and I will be sure to link to you when I start my blog!
“Where a lot of people mess up is they try to build a business or create a product that serves everybody, and by trying to serve everybody, you serve nobody. You have to specialize and niche down and find a market with a pain point that you, based on your experience, based on your education and based on your passion, can help,” he says. Your earnings will directly reflect how well you serve that particular audience, and the more your message resonates with them, the more opportunities you’ll have to sell to them.
The government’s concern with the accumulation of passive income-generating investments in private companies stems from the fact that CCPCs pay a blended federal and provincial small business tax rate of 13.5% (in Ontario) on active business income up to the small business deduction (SBD) limit of $500,000 in 2018. This compares favorably to the tax rates on income earned by individuals. On a combined federal and provincial basis, the differential between the highest marginal tax rate on personal income and the small business tax rate ranges between about 36% and 41%, depending on the province in which a CCPC resides.
If the property in the syndication was held for at least a year, the gain will be treated as long term capital gain subject to 15%/20% capital gains rate. Any depreciation taken on the property is subject to recapture and taxed at 25%. The issuance of a K-1 usually results in a taxpayer needing to extend their individual tax return as most K-1s are not sent out until after the regular due date April 15.
I've now only got an SF rental condo and a Lake Tahoe vacation rental in my real-estate-rental portfolio. Although I miss my old house, I certainly don't miss paying $23,000 a year in property taxes and another mortgage, and dealing with leaks and managing terrible tenants. I drove by the other day and couldn't believe how much noisier and busier the street was than where I currently live. I wouldn't be comfortable raising my son there.
It is helpful to have an understanding of the bigger tax items – basis and depreciation. Basis is the cost or purchase price of the property minus the value of the land (note: you cannot depreciate land). The depreciation deduction you can take on residential real estate per year is the basis (cost less land) divided by 27.5. Depreciation is a great tax deduction you can take every year but will affect your gain or loss when you sell the property.
Passive income bluntly is income that would continue to generate if you died. Morbid. How about this? Passive income is income that would continue to generate if you decided to do nothing and sunbathe on some beach. That sounds better. Passive income includes rental income, royalties and income from businesses or investment partnerships / multi-member LLCs where you do not materially participate.
Investing in a business: Another good way to generate passive income is to invest in a business --even a small one -- in return for a percentage of the profits - just like Shark Tank, only smaller. Lending $10,000 to a local business that, for example, is working on a mobile app for Apple phones could lead to a passive income-generated share of the profits when that mobile app starts selling like hot cakes.
Once your audience has grown and you have validation that you’re offering them value, there are many ways to create passive income. You could sell digital products like ebooks or courses, take up affiliate marketing in which you promote other company’s products and earn a commission when you sell that item to your audience, build a community and charge people to be a part of it, create software and sell that, among other avenues. Ask your audience directly what would serve them best, or look at what they’re saying on Twitter, Facebook or other websites, to find out what problems they have and how you could help solve them.
Finally, I imagine the biggest debate with my ranking is Creating Your Own Product as the #1 passive income source. If most people have never created their own product, then it’s easy to give it a thumbs down. There won’t be much complaint about Private Equity Investing being in last place because most people are not accredited investors. But given I believe that plenty of people can create their own product if they try, pushback is inevitable because a lot of people simply don’t try!
Grouping is important for a number of reasons. If you group two activities into one larger activity, you need only show material participation in the activity as a whole. But if the two activities are separate, you must show material participation in each one. On the other hand, if you group two activities into one larger activity and you dispose of one of the two, then you have disposed of only part of your entire interest in the activity. But if the two activities are separate and you dispose of one of them, then you have disposed of your entire interest in that activity.

5. Depreciation: Otherwise known as depreciation losses, depreciation tax write-offs are essentially the most important tax deduction in a passive income investor’s arsenal. As their name suggests, depreciation losses permit the owners of rental properties to write off the cost of the home over a predetermined period of time. The subject property is essentially a business expense, and therefore can be written off.

Passive activity loss is defined as “the excess of the aggregate losses from all passive activities for the taxable year over the aggregate income from all passive activities for that year.” A passive activity is any trade or business where the taxpayer does not materially participate. The taxpayer would materially participate in an activity if “they are involved in the operations of the activity on a regular, continuous, and substantial basis “Dr. Hardy's activity does not meet the material participation test.
The IRS gives more specific limitations as to what it means by “material” participation. For one, it includes if you worked at least 500 hours in a year on the project or more than 100 hours when no one else works more than you. Additionally, if you do at least almost all of the work in an activity, it’s considered material involvement. Even the combination of your work in multiple significant participation activities (SPAs), if it exceeds 500 hours, counts as material participation. There are a few more criteria that would qualify a project as material. You only need to meet one to qualify.
3. Start as soon as possible. Building a livable passive-income stream takes a tremendously long time, largely because of declining interest rates since the late 1980s. Gone are the days of making a 5%-plus return on a short-term CD or savings account. Today, the best 12-month CD is at 2.5%, and the best money-market rate is about 1.85%, which is not bad, considering such rates were below 0.5% just a couple of years ago. Know that every $100 you save can generate at least $2.5 in passive income.
In June, he put ads on his site with Google Adsense, and within the first hour, earned $1.08 with three clicks. He earned $5 the first day, $7 the second, and then eventually began pulling in $15-$30 a day. In October, he created an ebook exam study guide priced at $19.99. By month’s end, he earned $7,906.55 — more than he had ever previously earned in a month.
Investors turn to real estate as a way to build long-term wealth, earn additional income, and generate a tax shelter. Using real estate as a tax shelter that extends to other income can be a complicated process. Knowing how you can use any losses generated by your rental real estate starts with understanding how the IRS defines and treats passive and active income.
Go to IRS.gov/Forms to view, download, or print all of the forms and publications you may need. You can also download and view popular tax publications and instructions (including the 1040 instructions) on mobile devices as an eBook at no charge. Or, you can go to IRS.gov/OrderForms to place an order and have forms mailed to you within 10 business days.
But, wait: nothing is ever that easy; And, there's no such thing as 100 percent passive income. Building passive income actually requires hustle and an investment of time upfront to get your money off the ground and growing while you eat, sleep and play. Maintaining that growth means making sure that you're using the right tools and strategies to automate the work for you.
If you don’t want to write the book yourself, you can also hire a ghostwriter through various online sites like Upwork, Freelancer.com etc. writing is the best passive income ideas for 2018. See my Kindle Direct Publishing Portfolio HERE. Selling your eBook can be a great way to earn passive income forever once it’s released. You need to take significant time to make sure it is high-quality. Also, you will need to spend time promoting your eBook.
But then figure out your unique selling proposition, what advantage you can offer that the market currently lacks. “My advantage in the passive income marketing space is that I’m not afraid to share my failures or where my income comes from,” says Flynn, who details his impressive income every month. “Transparency is huge,” he says. Referring to the personal bio on his LEED exam site, he says, “You might think I’m not benefitting from putting my story on there, but it helps me establish a relationship with people there. I’m someone who went through the same experience people went through on the site.”

When a taxpayer records a loss on a passive activity, only passive activity profits can have their deductions offset instead of the income as a whole. It would be considered prudent for a person to ensure all the passive activities were classified that way so they can make the most of the tax deduction. These deductions are allocated for the next tax year and are applied in a reasonable manner that takes into account the next year's earnings or losses.

In most cases, any loss from an activity subject to the at-risk rules is allowed only to the extent of the total amount you have at risk in the activity at the end of the tax year. You are considered at risk in an activity to the extent of cash and the adjusted basis of other property you contributed to the activity and certain amounts borrowed for use in the activity. Any loss that is disallowed because of the at-risk limits is treated as a deduction from the same activity in the next tax year. See Pub. 925 for a discussion of the at-risk rules.
You pay two main types of taxes on earned income, Social Security/Medicare taxes (called FICA, OASDI, or payroll taxes), and federal and state income taxes. The payroll taxes that are automatically taken out of your paycheck have two components. First, 12.4 percent of earned income is paid to Social Security. Your employer pays half of this tax, and you pay half. If you are self-employed you'll pay the full 12.4 percent, however, the "employer" portion of 6.2 percent is generally tax deductible.

Investing is arguably the easiest way to make passive income. The problem is most investments sound good in theory but don’t work out so well in practice. And if you don’t have much experience or access to capital, let alone the time to work it all out, it can seem more or less impossible. However, there is one smart way to invest that just might work. Continue reading >

To quote Pat Flynn, a very successful passive income expert (he’s made millions), “We don’t have to trade our time for money one to one. Instead, we invest our time upfront, creating valuable products and experiences for people, and we reap the benefits of that time invested later,” he says, adding, “It’s not easy. I just want to make sure that’s clear.”
In determining whether qualified nonrecourse financing is secured only by real property used in the activity of holding real property, disregard property that’s incidental to the activity of holding real property. Also disregard other property if the total gross fair market value of that property is less than 10% of the total gross fair market value of all the property securing the financing.
You are also free to choose a fund that is based on any index that you want. For example, there are index funds set up for just about every market sector there is — energy, precious metals, banking, emerging markets — you name it. All you have to do is decide that you want to participate, then contribute money and sit back and relax. Your stock portfolio will then be on automatic pilot.